Christmas Biscuits – Great for making with the kids

My Christmas biscuits or cookies are a definite family favourite. They are great if you want to make something with your children to decorate the Christmas tree. But don’t worry they are very tasty too.

My Christmas biscuits or cookies

sable Pastry

The recipe is a variety of Sable pastry a rich egg and butter enriched recipe from France. You can use sable pastry for making tart cases, Linzer biscuits and wonderful festive mince pies. The classic central European Christmas recipe Linzer torte is made from a sable pastry. It is filled with jam and topped with a pastry lattice. The word “sable” is French for sand which you will see perfectly describes the grainy texture when you make the biscuits. The end result is a fine crumbly texture.

Sable dough

Decorating your biscuits

You may decorate your biscuits however your choose. It is great fun with my two girls as we have a rather over stocked baking cupboard and they run riot. You can purchase a wide range of decorations now in good supermarkets and speciality baking shops. Alongside old favourites such as hundreds and thousands you can buy edible glitter, gold and silver decorations and many more. You can use royal icing to decorate your finished biscuits if you have some from decorating your Christmas cake. If not you will find a recipe for a basic water icing which is perfectly suitable.

Decorated Christmas biscuits

You can find more recipes for festive biscuits and Christmas bakes here. Enjoy.

Christmas Biscuits

Rich buttery biscuits made from a Sable style pastry. If you want to hang your biscuits on your tree make a hole in the dough before baking. You can use a pen top or small sharp knife. Make sure you don’t make the hole to close to the edge.

Course Cakes and Biscuits

Cuisine French

Keyword Biscuits, Christmas, Sable Pastry

Prep Time 20minutes

Cook Time 10minutes

Cooling Time 1hour

Total Time 30minutes

Servings 30Biscuits

Author The Online Cookery School

Ingredients

200gramPlain Floursifted

100gramJersey Butterat room temperature

100gramGolden Caster Sugar

75gramGround Almonds

1free-range Egg

1Vanilla Podopened and seeds removed

1teaspoonAlmond Essence

TO DECORATE

400gramIcing Sugarsifted

3tablespoonfresh squeezed Lemon juice

Food Colourings

Edible Glitter

Edible Cake Decorations

Instructions

For the Biscuits

Preheat your oven to 375 F / 190 C / Gas Mark 5 and line a baking tray with baking parchment. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy.

Whisk the egg, vanilla seeds and almond essence together and beat a little at a time into the creamed butter and sugar, until thoroughly mixed. Fold in the flour until the mixture comes together as a dough.

Sprinkle flour on to a work surface and carefully roll out the biscuit dough to about 1cm thick. Cut the biscuits using cutter shapes of your choice and carefully place onto the baking tray.

To make into Christmas tree decorations, make a hole in the top of the biscuit. Place in the oven and bake for 8 – 10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes then transfer onto wire rack.

For the Icing

Place the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir in sufficient lemon juice to make a smooth, thick but workable icing. Stir in the food colouring if you want to at this stage.

Carefully spread the icing onto the biscuits using a small knife and sprinkle over the decorations. Put to one side and leave until the icing hardens.

Notes

Save the discarded Vanilla pod and place it in some Caster sugar to infuse it with the vanilla.

[…] basic recipe is for sweet buttery sable pastry and any left overs can be used to make Christmas biscuits. You can make the pastry ahead and freeze and defrost as you require. If you want to make a more […]

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